That makes two of us, then. If I was smart, I'd go out and pay for a commission; but the idea always seems to slip my mind whenever I actually happen to come across money that I can actually spend on non-neccessities.

I had a lot of theories too when I first finished the VN, mainly about Erika and Featherine. I already forgot about most of them, unfortunately. Of course I also have a number of theories on Junko too, the writer left a lot of things about her unexplained.

The way I see it, hope is a way of rejecting reality, an illusion people use to lie to themselves. Despair is merely what happens when the illusion is broken.

That's why I strive to live with as little hope as possible, embracing reality in all its absurd glory is the only way to live life fully.

When I read Umineko at first I agreed with the final moral, that there is no truth and it's then better to accept the truth that makes you happy. However something felt wrong.

If the world is all idea then there is no value except what you assign it, and when you realize that the value is arbitrary it loses it's value anyways by principle. In order to have value you must have both the subjective and objective world. The subjective is created from consciousness and being conscious give the consciousness being, an identity. The objective world is needed for the individual to affect any change. There must be a being and that being must affect something not in it's being.

tl;dr sure you can be happy with hopeful delusion, however nothing with meaning can come from it.

I agree that the world is absurd. That's how I can make a movement into an even greater hope. Hope as you know it is wishing for happy things to occur even when it doubtful or impossible they can occur. Any hopeful being like this will be crushed under the weight of truth, or fall into a happy delusion. However since the objective truth of the world can't be known to mortal humans, anything can happen in the world. That is why I say the world is absurd. Go further than hoping for happiness, believe it to be true. Understand that something is impossible, then make a movement of faith and believe that because the world is absurd it can and will be the truth. Good faith, that understands it's own fallacy is unbreakable by despair. That's how I believe one can live fully.

>The way I see it, hope is a way of rejecting reality, an illusion people use to lie to themselves. Despair is merely what happens when the illusion is broken.

>That's why I strive to live with as little hope as possible, embracing reality in all its absurd glory is the only way to live life fully.

Maybe it’s just a question of semantic regarding the definition of ‘’hope’’, but for me hope doesn’t have to be delusional (i.e. rejecting reality). One can retain a realistic optimism regarding the possible occurrence of a desired outcome or event.

And how can one strive for goals without any hope? I mean even the people behind Danganronpa must have had some hope that their videogame project could be feasible and that it could become a success. The way I see it, the hope regarding exterior events is pretty much ‘’optimism’’ while the hope regarding one’s abilities is pretty much ‘’confidence’’, and how can one live fully without those?

A blind delusional deterministic hope can halt somebody from reaching a desired goal, like some sick person with cancer who refuses any treatment because he has a blind hope that God will save him no matter what he does or doesn’t. On the other hand, that person could have a realistic hope regarding his prognostic and go for treatment.

And I would say that in dire circumstances, a somehow unrealistic (but not completely delusional) hope can be quite helpful and give one the strength to move forward through adversity. I just don’t see how one can achieve anything in despair, or simply living a genuine happiness.

But maybe we just don’t share the same definition of ‘’hope’’? There was an article on hope I once read that defined hope as ‘’the perceived capability to derive pathways to desired goals, and motivate oneself via agency thinking to use those pathways’’. That would pretty much be my definition, although this definition is pretty much limited to the evaluative and motivational components of hope and I would therefore add another component, an emotional one, which would be an enhanced sense of security.

With an attitude like that, nothing will come into your brain. So I leave you with this instead:

Despair is simply frustrated and accumulated hope that did not have a healthy outlet, thus despair cannot exist without hope. Anyone who praises despair, is simply a frustrated hopefag. And their smugness, their gothic attitudes, and their dark theatricality, are tools to cover up that fact.

Prove me wrong. If you won't, then accept the fact that you have nothing but your shallow smugness.

I agree with most of what you've said, and it's true that the world is a meaningless, chaotic and random place where technically anything could happen, as there are no objective truths (that we know of) to limit the realm of what's possible. However, that means there are no events that we can consider absolutely impossible.

Maybe I'm not fully understanding what you meant by that, but it sounds contradictory to me. How can you simultaneously think anything can happen in the world and that something is impossible? Unless by impossible you mean something with a very low probability of happening. Like a miracle.

For me, hope is a person's idealized version of the future. Like Rikafag said: "wishing for happy things to occur even when it doubtful or impossible they can occur".

Hope is inherently delusional, because you're essentially imagining a future where you got what you wanted. Even something as small as hoping it won't rain tomorrow can be considered delusional. There's always the possibility that it will rain, and if it does you will feel a proportional amount of despair/disappointment.

>And how can one strive for goals without any hope?

Hope and desire are two different things. OH Desire is what you want, and hope is your expectations of getting it. You can desire something and work for it without holding any serious expectations of getting said thing. Now, I realize that living entirely without hopes or expectations is unrealistic, that's why I said "as little hope as possible".

And yes, hope can be a source of motivation, but also a source of suffering. Therefore you should never rely on it too much. In other words, the less fucks you give about results, the better. That's pretty much what I was trying to say.

I'm sorry to burst your bubble but I don't praise despair if that's what you're implying, and I'm well aware that despair is the product of unrealized hopes. You would've realized that if you had read my previous post.

I gotta give it to you though, I wasn't hoping to get a worthwhile reply from you and you still made me despair a bit, impressive. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll continue being smug.

Then, ultimately speaking, you ARE a hopefag too. I only said that you're "praising despair", mainly because it sounds better than a "despairfag".

Thus, why do you want hopefags to kill each other, which will include you and Junko? That smug smile on the face, whether it is preserved at the prospect of murder in case that the chaos event she hopes for really happens, will not change the fact that, ultimately, people will restore order anyway.

There isn't a true chaos, and the "chaos" we know of even has rules, absurd it might sound. (New discoveries only seem chaotic because we have yet to figure out the rules and how they work, actually. Once we do, it ain't chaos anymore, obviously.) Because there is the physical world, and might it be that our minds and bodies can be fragile and has limits, it doesn't mean that the physical world does not exist. It doesn't matter if someone with a hallucination saw a Hoplite hit his head with a French bread until it bleeds, the point is that there is a physical attacker and and he just got bludgeoned with blunt and long object. There isn't, you might say? Then there's something wrong with the physical brain. In the skull.

>For me, hope is a person's idealized version of the future.

That is not "hope", that's "ideals". And even embracing "the wheel of fate", as you seem to aim for, is an ideal. It's hope that accepting it will not make you suffer any longer, the contradictory and seemingly absurd nature of human life will not emotionally hurt you or disappoint you anymore.

Point is, yeah, yeah, I've heard about how life is absurd or meaningless long ago. But your philosophy of striving to not strive much only can apply in a philosophical sense. You should know the reason already it does: Everything has physical limitations. But to say that "hoping", by your definition, can only lead to "despair", doesn't take factor into two things:

First, who the fuck said that life is supposed to have an initial assigned meaning into it, and why should people fall to sadness that it is meaningless?! If anything else, I take as a sign that people are free to do whatever they want to aim for. Nobody needs to live, and the universe doesn't need to exist, neither there is a need for existence. But goddamn me if I don't want to live, goddamn me if people aren't afraid of the ultimate fate of the universe, and damn it if we don't treasure existence, in some way or another. Sure, humanity, life and the universe will end in the indeterminate future, but even the Universe itself started out as a Void. Nothing. Then here we go again, things will exist. That's hope right there.

Second, it's better to chase some ideal you know is unreachable at it's fullest, as long as you aren't being a morally destructive. People who reached the top keep saying that they got everything they wanted, and they still aren't happy. I'd say it's nonsense: They either aren't enjoying it enough, or it's about time for them to shift into another aim or goal. There's nothing wrong with trying to get a new goal once you got the one you wanted. And if you haven't yet, at least someone should appreciate more the things they have… as there's always something better. And even if we die, and we would, well… Historical figures in the past only achieved the extent of the greatness because they strived, not giving a damn about how they're gonna die anyway.

I don't think you understood my original post, I never said I wanted everyone who feels hope to die. By "hopefag" I meant it in the Danganronpa sense of the word, where there are factions revolved around the concepts of hope and despair. It doesn't mean I consider anyone who feels even a tiny bit of hope a "hopefag" because then that label would apply to everyone.

The point is that nothing can be known with 100% certainty because everything you experience is limited by your senses. How can you be so sure the world we live in is physical, and not a computer simulation or some higher dimensional being's dream? Not that it would make any difference to most people, it's just an idea that's fun to think about.

>That is not "hope", that's "ideals"

Wanting a certain thing to happen in the future is hope. It's pretty much the official definition of the word:

<1. to cherish a desire with anticipation : to want something to happen or be true

I already said living with a complete lack of hope is unrealistic, but that doesn't mean you can't lower your expectations and focus on the present without obsessing over the results of your actions.

"Hope can only lead to despair"? I don't recall ever saying anything close to that. What I've been saying all this time is that hope only leads to despair when it's crushed by reality. If you hope tomorrow won't rain and it doesn't, that hope you had can never turn into despair.

Nice, I was sleepy and slightly drunk last night so I wasn't sure if I had interpreted your post correctly.

Gee, I never thought my harmless comment about people killing each other would spiral into a philosophical discussion about hope and despair and derail the thread this much. I should probably stop now, if anyone has further questions, you can refer to pic related.

Well I guess the thread is already derailed, so I might as well derail it even more. At least this little argument made the board a bit more active than usual.

I've only read Higurashi and Umineko. I actually downloaded Higanbana a few months ago and then forgot about it. I'll probably start it after I finish 428 Shibuya Scramble. That VN is hilarious, I almost feel bad for pirating it.

>How can you be so sure the world we live in is physical, and not a computer simulation or some higher dimensional being's dream?

One indication of this is the irrational number of pi/phi. It starts with a 3 and the decimal points never end. Yet we only need to know the 40 places to operate an supercollider.

And in regards to higher dimensional beings, we can certainly never know what kind they are, how they operate, or even if they're entities, concepts, or something else. There's also the possibility that nothing like that or them exists. Or there's something else that indescribable with human language.

>What I've been saying all this time is that hope only leads to despair when it's crushed by reality.

This is the problem. Just because reality crushes your ideals, doesn't mean you have to get discouraged by it. In fact, in my personal experience, such thing or result should drive you more with a pursuit to that ideal.

I shouldn't even be THIS caught up with my pedantry: My stomach lining has grown weak and wounded due to stresses (I suspect that this is the result of my bipolar disorder back when it was undiagnosed in high school) and acidic, yet here I am, going full autistic on this shit.

Foolhardy to death or stupid, you might say. But I don't want to be afraid to be a fool anymore.